This extraordinary portrait depicts Velázquez’s slave of Moorish descent, who served as an assistant in his workshop. Painted in Rome, it was displayed publicly beneath the portico of the Pantheon in March 1650. Velázquez clearly intended to impress his Italian colleagues with his unique artistry. Indeed we are told that the picture "gained such universal applause that in the opinion of all the painters of the different nations everything else seemed like painting but this alone like truth". Juan de Pareja became a painter in his own right and was freed by Velázquez in 1654.

Between 1649 and 1651, Velázquez travelled to Italy for the second and last time in his life. The main purpose of the trip was to buy paintings and sculptures for King Philip IV of Spain, and while he was in Rome, the painter also received the prestigious commission to portray Pope Innocent X (the canvas is now in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome). During his two years in Italy Velázquez produced some outstanding portraits of patrons and princes of the Church, including those of Cardinal Camillo Astalli (Hispanic Society, New York), Camillo Massimo (Kingston Lacy, Dorset) and the so-called Pope’s Barber (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid). The portrait of Juan de Pareja is one of the most important and striking works documented during Velázquez’s second Italian trip.

Antonio Palomino, one of Velázquez’s biographers, recorded that while in Rome Velázquez "made the portrait of Juan de Pareja, his slave and fine painter, which was so like him and so lively that, when he sent it by means of Pareja himself to some friends for their criticism, they just stood looking at the painted portrait and at the original in awe and wonder, not knowing to whom they should speak or who would answer them. About this portrait (which was half-length and done from life) Andreas Schmidt, a Flemish painter in the Court who was in Rome at the time, used to tell that since for the feast of Saint Joseph it was the custom to decorate the cloister of the Pantheon (where Raphael of Urbino is buried) with famous pictures, both ancient and modern, this portrait was hung there, and it received such universal acclaim that in the opinion of all the painters of different nations everything else looked like painting, this alone like reality" (see Palomino 1724).

Every year, on March 19, the feast of Saint Joseph, the Congregazione dei Virtuosi would organize an exhibition under the portico of the Pantheon in Rome. The Virtuosi were a congregation of artists, established in 1543, that had their headquarters at the Pantheon. Velázquez was a member since at least the beginning of 1650. On February 13 of that year he appeared as one of the official organizers (festaroli) of the yearly feast in honor of Saint Joseph, together with Gregorio del Prete, Giovan Battista Magni, and Jan Miel. As recorded by Palomino, the portrait of Juan de Pareja was Velázquez’s painting on display in 1650 at the Pantheon and probably his first publicly exhibited work in that city.

Juan de Pareja was Velázquez’s slave and assistant. He was of Moorish descent and was born in Antequera, near Malaga. A few months after his portrait was exhibited, on November 23, 1650, the painter signed the official act of liberation of Juan, making him a free man (Montagu 1983). In the document Pareja agreed to stay with his master for a further four years, but in fact he continued to live with him until Velázquez’s death, and subsequently was in the house of his son-in-law, the painter Juan Bautista Mazo. The close relationship between Velázquez and Pareja is apparent in the canvas, painted with an extremely informal and lifelike quality.

The portrait was acquired in 1776 by Sir William Hamilton from Vincenzo Ruffo, 3rd duca di Baranello, in Naples. It had been in the Ruffo family since at least 1734 when it appears in the inventory of Cardinal Tommaso Ruffo’s collection in Rome. From Hamilton it then passed to the Earls of Radnor, from about 1811 to 1970, when it was acquired by the MMA.

A smaller copy, now at the Hispanic Society, was previously with the Earls of Carlisle at Castle Howard and has sometimes been thought to be Velázquez’s original. However, it is clearly a copy of the Metropolitan’s picture, possibly by Pareja himself. Three other copies of the portrait are known. The first one was formerly in the collection of Captain J.B. Blackett in Arbigland, Dumfries, Scotland, and was sold at Christie’s, London, May 29, 1992, no. 321. A nineteenth-century copy was in the Peruvian Embassy in Washington, and is last documented in the residence of the ambassador, Fernando Berckemeyer, in San Francisco in 1973. A third and slightly larger version with a few differences has been in the Musée des Beaux-Arts Jules Chéret, Nice, since 1903.

Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco. El museo pictórico, y escala óptica. Vol. 3, El parnaso español pintoresco laureado. Madrid, 1724 [1724 ed. reprinted in Fuentes literarias para la historia del arte español, F. J. Sánchez Cantón, ed., vol. 4, Madrid, 1936, pp. 167–68; 1796 ed., pp. 501–2], states that Velázquez painted his slave Juan de Pareja to prepare himself for painting Pope Innocent X; cites "Andrés Esmit" [Andreas Schmidt], a Flemish painter in Rome at the time, who described an exhibition of paintings by ancient and modern masters in the rotunda [of the Pantheon] on the Feast of Saint Joseph, in which this portrait excited great admiration: all the painters of different nationalities agreed that whereas all the other works looked like painting, this alone was truth; claims that as a result Velázquez was admitted to the Roman Academy in 1650.

Sir William Hamilton. Letter to Charles Greville. March 1776 [translated excerpt in Ref. Knight, p. 73; also published in A. Morrison, The Hamilton and Nelson Papers, London, 1893, vol. 1, p. 48, in Morgan Library, NYC], mentions that he is shipping this picture from the Baranello collection to Palazzo Sessa.

Richard Cumberland. Anecdotes of Eminent Painters in Spain during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. London, 1782, vol. 2, p. 35, mentions the exhibition at the Pantheon and Velázquez's admission to the academy in Rome.

W[illiam]. Buchanan. Memoirs of Painting, with a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution. London, 1824, vol. 2, p. 76, no. 59, quotes the description from Sir William Hamilton's sale catalogue of 1801, noting that the portrait came from the Baranello collection at Naples and was sold to Parkes for 39 guineas.

William Stirling[-Maxwell]. Annals of the Artists of Spain. London, 1848, vol. 2, pp. 642, 710; vol. 3, p. 1403, describes the Radnor portrait as perhaps the one painted as an exercise before Velázquez undertook the portrait of Innocent X.

William Stirling-Maxwell. Velazquez and his Works. London, 1855, pp. 159–60, 252, mentions a lithograph after the painting by Gabriel Rolin.

[Gustav Friedrich] Waagen. Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain. London, 1857, p. 361, lists it as picture 147 at Longford Castle.

Carl Justi. Diego Velazquez und sein Jahrhundert. Bonn, 1888, pp. 177–80, ill. (engraving), observes that either the Castle Howard or Radnor version must be the work that was exhibited at the Pantheon.

Edwin Stowe. Velazquez. London, 1889, p. 101, mentions that the attribution of the Radnor portrait is "doubted by Waagen".

Walter Armstrong. The Life of Velazquez. London, 1896, first page unpaginated, and pp. 64, 66, believes the Castle Howard picture "has the better claim" to be the work exhibited in Rome.

Claude Phillips. "The Collection of Pictures at Longford Castle. III.—The Spanish and French Pictures." Art-Journal, n.s., (1897), pp. 243–44, ill., calls the Castle Howard picture finer than the Radnor picture, but attributes both to Velázquez.

Hermann Knackfuss. Velazquez. 3rd ed. Bielefeld, 1898, p. 38.

A. de Beruete. Velazquez. Paris, 1898, pp. 117–19, 207, ill. [revised English ed., 1906, pp. 84–85, 94, 152, 159, pl. 59], identifies the Radnor version as the original and states that it was acquired by the 2nd Earl of Radnor in May 1911; calls the version with the Earl of Carlisle [now Hispanic Society, New York], a copy, probably with some retouches by the master.

R. A. M. Stevenson. Velasquez. London, 1906, p. 140, calls the Radnor picture the original and the painting from Castle Howard a replica.

Albert F. Calvert and C. Gasquoine Hartley. Velazquez: An Account of His Life and Works. London, 1908, pp. 113–14, 217, no. 170, call the Radnor picture the original and erroneously state that it was in the Guildhall exhbition of 1901.

A. de Beruete y Moret. The School of Madrid. London, 1909, pp. 131–32.

Helen Matilda, Countess of Radnor and William Barclay Squire. Catalogue of the Pictures in the Collection of the Earl of Radnor. London, 1909, pp. 53–55, no. 87, ill., state that the picture was certainly acquired by 1814, and probably acquired by the 2nd Earl on May 1, 1811.

Aureliano de Beruete y Moret. "Exhibition of Ancient and Modern Spanish Paintings at the Royal Academy." Connoisseur 18 (1920), pp. 187–88, ill. (erroneously as portrait of Velázquez by himself, lent by the Fine Art Museum, Valencia).

Elizabeth du Gué Trapier. Catalogue of Paintings in the Collection of the Hispanic Society of America, 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Vol. 2, New York, 1929, pp. 163–64, attributes to Velázquez the picture formerly at Castle Howard and presented to the Hispanic Society, New York, by Archer M. Huntington; calls it sketchier in quality and possibly a study for the Radnor canvas.

O. E. Deutsch. "Sir William Hamilton's Picture Gallery." Burlington Magazine 82 (February 1943), p. 41, publishes an extract of a manuscript list of Hamilton's picture gallery, compiled at the end of 1798 by James Cox, which includes a painting by Velázquez: "Portrait of a Man, half-figure, Spanish dress; 3.1 by 2.8 [Palme]".

Elizabeth du Gué Trapier. "Velázquez: New Data on a Group of Portraits." Notes Hispanic 4 (1944), pp. 48–54, 57, ill. (overall and detail), identifies the Radnor portrait as the original and the version in the Hispanic Society as a copy produced in Velázquez's studio, perhaps by Juan de Pareja himself.

Elizabeth du Gué Trapier. Velázquez. New York, 1948, pp. 302–3, 309, figs. 195–96 (overall and detail), mentions only the Radnor portrait and calls it Velázquez's original; notes that in a letter dated May 12, 1630, a "Juan de Pareja" wrote to the procurator of Seville stating that he held the office of painter (an office not permitted to slaves) and requested permission to go to Madrid to study painting; concludes, on this basis, that Pareja was Velázquez's studio assistant, not his slave as stated by Palomino [Ref. 1724].

William E. Suida. A Catalogue of Paintings in the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art. Sarasota, 1949, p. 279, calls the Radnor picture the original and the Castle Howard version a good replica.

Elizabeth du Gué Trapier. The Hispanic Society of America: Velázquez Portraits in the Collection. New York, 1952, pp. 13–14, calls the version in the Hispanic Society a copy, possibly made by Juan de Pareja in Velázquez's studio, and under his direction; suggests their version was the portrait in the collection of Cardinal Trajano de Acquaviva in Rome in the 18th century.

A History of the Hispanic Society of America: Museum and Library, 1904–1954. New York, 1954, p. 246, calls it a close replica of the Radnor version, painted in the studio of Velázquez and under his direction.

Enriqueta Harris. "Velázquez en Roma." Archivo español de arte 31 (July–September 1958), pp. 189–91, notes that Velázquez was elected to Rome's Accademia di S. Luca in January 1650, but the annual exhibition at the Pantheon on the feast day of Saint Joseph did not occur until March 19, 1650; thus Palomino's report that the artist's election to the Academy resulted from the impression this portrait created at the Pantheon cannot be correct; notes that these annual exhibitions were actually mounted by the Congregazióne dei Virtuosi and provides contemporary evidence that Velázquez was also a member of this group prior to March 19; states that in every other respect Palomino's description of the circumstances under which this portrait was painted are reliable.

Martin Soria in George Kubler and Martin Soria. Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and their American Dominions, 1500 to 1800. Baltimore, 1959, p. 265, calls it firmer and less sketchy than the other portraits Velázquez painted in Rome, which he describes as "Titianesque".

Francis Haskell. "Art Exhibitions in XVII Century Rome." Studi Secenteschi 62 (1960), p. 111, cites Velázquez as the first painter we know of who used the Pantheon exhibitions to draw attention to himself beyond papal and artistic circles; notes that the artist was already a member of the Accademia di S. Luca and of the Congregazione dei Virtuosi when this portrait was exhibited.

José López-Rey. Velázquez: A Catalogue Raisonné of His Oeuvre. London, 1963, pp. 97–100, 102, 300, no. 517, pl. 133, observes that it may have been painted at any time between July 10, 1649 and March 19, 1650, when it was shown at the Pantheon; states that the painted surface is folded over the edge of the stretcher at the top, right and bottom; considers it unlikely that the "remarkably fine" Hispanic Society copy was painted by Pareja himself.

Francis Haskell. Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque. New York, 1963, pp. 126, 222, pl. 34, notes that this portrait was previously in the collections of Cardinal Ruffo and was with Sir William Hamilton by 1798, before passing into the collection of Lord Radnor.

Everett Fahy. "Juan de Pareja by Diego Velázquez: A History of the Portrait and its Painter." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 29, part 2 (June 1971), unpaginated, ill. (x-ray; ill. in color before, during and after treatment, and color detail on cover), supplies detailed provenance, and remarks that Preciado's 1765 essay [see Refs.] is the only evidence that this portrait belonged to Cardinal Acquaviva; suggests that what Preciado saw was a copy.

Hubert von Sonnenburg. "The Technique and Conservation of the Portrait." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 29, part 2 (June 1971), unpaginated, ill. (details of conservation), describes the painting's excellent state of preservation, noting that it has not been relined; observes that the technique is related to 16th–century Venetian practice; explains how the canvas, which had been folded over, was restored to its original dimensions.

[Denys Sutton]. "Editorial: A Gentleman from New England." Apollo 107 (May 1978), p. 360, records Charles Eliot Norton's reaction to the painting when he saw it at the Royal Academy in 1873.

Godfrey Barker. "Taxation and The Heritage: A National Shame." Connoisseur 198 (July 1978), p. 220, ill. (reversed), notes that the National Gallery, London, requested a grant from the Treasury in the amount of 2 million pounds in order to purchase the picture.

Jennifer Montagu. "Velázquez Marginalia: His Slave Juan de Pareja and His Illegitimate Son Antonio." Burlington Magazine 125 (November 1983), pp. 683–84, states that Pareja was indeed Velázquez's slave, as he was liberated by him in a notarial act of November 23, 1650, preserved in the Archivio di Stato, Rome; notes that this document identifies Pareja as having been born in Antequera, in the diocese of Malaga, not in Seville.

Carlo Knight. "La quadreria di Sir William Hamilton a Palazzo Sessa." Napoli nobilissima 24 (January–April 1985), pp. 51, 55, no. 197, ill., publishes an inventory in Hamilton's hand of the contents of Palazzo Sessa, dated July 14, 1798, in which this picture is described as coming from the Baranello Collection at Naples.

Elisa Bermejo. "Crónica: Exposición Velázquez." Archivo español de arte 63 (April–June 1990), p. 389, fig. 6, describes this portrait as the "star" of the Madrid exhibition and as one of Velázquez's most successful portraits.

John Pope-Hennessy. Learning to Look. New York, 1991, p. 235, states that Velázquez commonly folded over his canvases to center a subject, and mentions that the portrait of Cardinal Massimi at Kingston Lacey is treated in exactly the same way; notes that after cleaning the canvas in our portrait was not folded over as it had been, "with the result that Pareja's head is off-center and the effect made by the image is less dynamic than it used to be".

Hubert von Sonnenburg. "A Note on the Dimensions of 'Juan de Pareja'." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 51 (Winter 1993/94), pp. 26–31, fig. 1 (color), believes the finished canvas remained on its original support for a long time before it was folded over; refutes Pope-Hennessy's [see Ref. 1991] belief that the canvas had been folded over by Velázquez himself in order to center the figure; points out that the dimensions of the copy in the Hispanic Society correspond to those of the original after the canvas was folded, probably when it entered the collection of the earl of Radnor; mentions the copy sold at Christie's in 1992—the only extant copy that matches our painting exactly in size and composition—as evidence that the composition was always intended to be left of center.

Susann Waldmann. Der Künstler und sein Bildnis im Spanien des 17. Jahrhunderts: Ein Beitrag zur spanischen Porträtmalerei. Frankfurt, 1995, pp. 154, 216, no. 28, fig. 73, considers it an example of the "pintor noble" type of portrait, like the Velázquez self-portrait (Uffizi, Florence), in which the artist portrays himself with a sword and glove rather than the attributes of his trade.

Kim Sloan in Ian Jenkins and Kim Sloan. Vases & Volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and His Collection. Exh. cat., British Museum. London, 1996, pp. 76, 84, fig. 36, states that in 1769 Hamilton and Charles Greville seem to have visited the Baranello collection in Naples where they saw this painting, and that five years later he began negotiating for its purchase.

Michael Kimmelman. "At the Met with Leon Golub and Nancy Spero." New York Times (January 5, 1996), p. C5, Golub observes that "despite his [Juan de Pareja's] authoritative expression, . . . this figure has a certain vulnerability—a desire to put himself across that blacks sometimes have to have because they are excluded from power. . . It's a look of wariness, caution, that you don't see in Philip ["Philip IV, MMA 14.40.639]".

Oscar Pfouma with an introduction by Alain Anselin. Le nègre de Velazquez et le miroir de l'histoire: Les héritiers de Juan de Pareja. Paris, 1996, pp. 29–30, ill., cites Pareja's loyalty to Velázquez as one type of response of a slave to his condition.

Michael Kimmelman. "At the Met with Chuck Close: Sought or Imposed, Limits Can Take Flight." New York Times (July 25, 1997), C section, Close observes that "Rembrandt would have doggedly drawn every single button of Juan de Pareja's jacket, then highlighted every one of them. What Velázquez does is paint something by not painting it: you see the way he makes the hand palpably real without anything precisely described except its outside edge? The same with the mouth, one of the great orifices in art, out of focus yet you still know just how soft the lips would be to kiss.".

Antonia Morel d'Arleux. "Origen y vicisitudes de cuatro óleos inéditos que pertenecieron a la Colección Real." Goya (1999), p. 80, suggests that Juan de Pareja and Juan Latino, the subject of a painting entitled "Boy with a Dog" (presumably Colección Real) may be the same person, as they were born in the same year.

Víctor I. Stoichita inVelázquez. Barcelona, 1999, pp. 206–7, 222, 367–81, fig. III/15 (color), notes that a portrait of a slave was unusual in the context of the 17th century.

Kymberly N. Pinder. "Book Reviews: Black Representation and Western Survey Textbooks." Art Bulletin 81 (September 1999), p. 536, notes that in general survey texts the African American is more commonly known as a subject through the works of white artists, as in the our portrait of Juan de Pareja by Velázquez [than through the works of black artists].

Walter Liedtke et al. Vermeer and the Delft School. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2001, p. 117, compares Carel Fabritius's self-portrait of about 1648–50 (Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam) to this picture, calling it the "'Juan de Pareja' of the Netherlands"; notes that these portraits "have in common optical effects achieved through complexly layered touches," which may be explained by the direct and indirect influence of Titian.

Zahira Véliz. "Signs of Identity in 'Lady with a Fan' by Diego Velázquez: Costume and Likeness Reconsidered." Art Bulletin 86 (March 2004), p. 91, compares the indirect gaze of the sitter in Velazquez's "Lady with a Fan" (Walllace Collection, London) with the direct gaze of Juan de Pareja.

Wolf Moser. Der Fall Velázquez: Antworten. Munich, 2005, pp. 138–39, ill., claims that it was originally a self-portrait by Pareja and that Velázquez overpainted it.

Svetlana Alpers. The Vexations of Art: Velázquez and Others. New Haven, 2005, p. 180, notes that "the pose, though reversed, confers on him [Pareja] the dignity of Raphael's 'Baldassare Castiglione' (Louvre, Paris)".

Pierre Rosenberg. Only in America: One Hundred Paintings in American Museums Unmatched in European Collections. Milan, 2006, pp. 17, 110, fig. 15 (color).

Giles Knox. The Late Paintings of Velázquez: Theorizing Painterly Performance. Farnham, England, 2009, pp. 111, 113, fig. 4.6 (color), discusses the hierarchy of genres and Velázquez's decision to present himself as a portrait rather than a history painter in his second visit to Rome; notes that portraits were seen as one notch above genre painting, since their subjects were so often of noble birth, but in the case of his portrait of Pareja, Velázquez "emphatically removed the nobility of the subject from the equation and thereby asserted the nobility of portraiture as portraiture," a clear challenge to the accepted hierarchy.

Victor Stoichita inThe Image of the Black in Western Art. Ed. David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates Jr. Vol. 3, part 1, From the "Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition: Artists of the Renaissance and Baroque. Cambridge, Mass., 2010, pp. 225–26, 228–29, 232–34, fig. 120 (color).

Paul H. D. Kaplan inThe Image of the Black in Western Art. Ed. David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates Jr. Vol. 3, part 1, From the "Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition: Artists of the Renaissance and Baroque. Cambridge, Mass., 2010, pp. 183, 366 n. 331.

David Bindman inThe Image of the Black in Western Art. Ed. David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates Jr. Vol. 3, part 1, From the "Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition: Artists of the Renaissance and Baroque. Cambridge, Mass., 2010, p. 3.